Like A Shattered Record Needle
by WatchingTheAngels
Summary: After 5x22, up to 6x22.  About as canon as I can get.  Castiel's POV about Dean living with Lisa and Ben.  His thoughts on Dean and reasoning out why he loves Dean and why the hell it hurts so much.


Title: Like A Shattered Record Needle  
>Author: kahla802<br>Word Count: ~700  
>Prompt: #24<br>Warnings/Summary: _(After 5x22, up to 6x22. About as canon as I can get and actually have it come out okay. Sorry!)_  
>Castiel's POV about Dean living with Lisa and Ben. His thoughts on Dean and reasoning out why he loves Dean and why the hell it hurts so much.<p>

It's an odd feeling that keeps Castiel standing there under the streetlight long after Dean, Lisa, and Ben have fallen into dreams. An odd feeling that leaves his heart thumping against his ribs out of time, a drummer who has lost the beat. The only other time he felt this way was when he couldn't find his father and that scares him. It means that he feels like he lost something. Something important.

Dean is important. Not only as the Righteous Man who started the apocalypse, Micheal's vessel, or as the brother to Lucifer's vessel, but as _Dean Winchester._ The only human since the entire race of man began who's soul shines like an angel's grace without the mojo. The only human to be so steadfastly stubborn it rivals Castiel's own inflexibility.

The only man to steal his heart.

Truth is, Castiel had never seen it coming. When the angels had gotten the order to retrieve Dean from the raging flames in Hell he had jumped when God's first in command said jump because that's what good little soldiers do. Castiel was always a good little soldier.

He knew it all started when he tried to talk to Dean with his true voice. The poor guy couldn't even stand, instead falling to his knees and covering his ears to hide from it and wait out the unearthly noise. Even though it made him look humble, kneeling to an angel, to Dean that wasn't playing by the rules. So, Castiel did something he hadn't done in two thousand years; he asked his vessel for permission and became a member of earth.

When he first saw Dean through human eyes he could still see what he saw in his true form. He knew Dean was beautiful (though Dean would hate him forever if he told him so), and wanted to know what touching him felt like. Not sexually, no, not at the time, but just to the feel of his skin under his borrowed fingers. He had rebuilt that body, after all, and knew every crevice and curve of it, from his ten little toes to every tiny smattering of freckles.

Naive angel that he was at the time, he thought Dean was being rude by asking the interrogation like questions he did and his gruff, rugged grunts and demeanor. Only after gazing at his soul properly did he know Dean was scared of him; scared of his power and 'mojo', as Dean so irritatingly put it. This made him want to tear his Grace out and throw it down as a piece offering but knew he would never live quite right without it. As a form of apology he began answering their calls for his help, not even feeling (too) hurt by their clear dismissals afterward without even a "thanks, Cas."

And ah, that nickname! How he loved it; it was Dean's mechanism to feel more comfortable around him, what with taking the godly part off his name, but he loved it anyway. It was Dean's way of making him all the more human.

And human he did feel for a time. Whenever he heard the Winchesters call he would watch over them or go to them when he could. That was what he was doing here now. Even if Dean didn't realize it yet, he will only be with Lisa for a short while and with Castiel's name falling so innocently from Dean's lips how could he refuse to come and listen? He existed off his love for Dean.

So, standing here underneath the lazy glow he waited. He listened to the murmured cries of Dean's nightmares from his time in Hell and waited, felt Lisa's love for Dean that could never come close to what he feels for Dean, heard Dean unconsciously say his nickname in his sleep and waited.

He was left waiting for a long time.

It wasn't until years later, when he had finally been fed up with the Winchesters acceptance of his help, always thinking he'd be there and never saying thank you that he realized loved Dean.

That's why it hurt so much having him say that he wouldn't love his new God.

That's why it hurt so much having him say he wouldn't love him.


End file.
